This project explored how extreme environments can shape communities and whether environmental filtering plays a role in the assembly of microbial mat communities.
Interactions between phytoplankton species shape their physiological and evolutionary responses. Yet, studies addressing the evolutionary responses of phytoplankton in changing environments often lack an explicit element of biotic interactions. Here, …
1. Pre-dispersal seed mortality caused by premature fruit drop is a potentially important source of plant mortality, but one which has rarely been studied in the context of tropical forest plants. Of particular interest is premature fruit drop …
Walking around a tropical forest it is not uncommon to come across unripened fruits on the floor. Trees will often abort the development of their offspring if deemed unlikely to reach adulthood as a plant, allowing them to fall and die.
The McMurdo Ice Shelf in Antarctica forms a 50m thick undulating surface of ice floating on the sea. Annual summer thawing of ice and snow causes the formation of thousands of ponds in depressions on the ice.
The undulating ice of the McMurdo Ice Shelf, Southern Victoria Land, supports one of the largest networks of ice-based, multiyear meltwater pond habitats in Antarctica, where microbial mats are abundant and contribute most of the biomass and …